Tuesday, February 13, 2018

What is Laura Madeleine reading?

I’m in full research mode for my next novel right now, so all of my reading is on a theme. I’ve just finished two books by Mohamed Choukri, a Moroccan writer who taught himself how to read and write in his twenties after a childhood of poverty, abuse and crime. His For Bread Alone was a startlingly honest and fascinating account of growing up on-and-off the streets in Tangier and...[read on]

In Where the Wild Cherries Grow by Laura Madeleine, it is 1919, and the end of the war has not brought peace for Emeline Vane. Lost in grief, she is suddenly alone at the heart of a depleted family. And just as everything seems to be slipping beyond her control, in a moment of desperation, she boards a train and runs away.

Her journey leads her to a tiny seaside village in the South of France. Taken in by café owner Maman and her twenty-year-old son, Emeline discovers a world completely new to her: of oranges, olives and wild herbs, the raw, rich tastes of the land. But soon secrets from home begin blowing in on the sea waves.

Fifty years later, Bill Perch, a young solicitor on his first case, finds Emeline’s diary, and begins to trace an anguished story of betrayal and love that will send him on a journey to discover the truth.